SELF PORTRAIT WITH FLYING MONKEYS
and so far from home
we won’t be listening
to the far flung future
to those malevolent sounds
an old house makes
broken now like
weather after the funeral--
other children called
that ancient woman
the witch but we called her
bachan, grandmother
made of slick sinew
and wind—not the ghost
of wartime incarceration
not black magic
not mythology of dust
and barbed wire
no—there is a storm
inside my heart, sad
cyclone dislodging
grief where it hangs in
the body, where sorrow
emerges savage from
black skies like
a ragged cloud
of winged figures--
primitive angels
ask us where we’re from--
we’ll say there’s a house
on the other side
of the rainbow—we’ll say
there’s that field
of dying poppies
where we once slept--
we’ll say there’s no place
THE SKY IS FULL OF SKELETONS
Some day the sky will fall
apart, break into flocks of birds,
each one bearing a slow song
for the dead. Some day the world
will crack open to reveal the quiet
names of my ancestors tattooed
beneath its mantle. It’s raining bullets
somewhere in the world, everyone’s
drunk uncles standing in the backyard,
their pistols pointed up at the moon.
The stars dissolve into prayers,
the constellations into a song
about dynamite and whiskey
and other words we have for love.
In the afterlife, there is a secret grove
of stones, each one bearing a name
long since surrendered to night.
There is a family of skeletons
trying to remember how they know
one another. I'm the one missing
half its ribcage, the one pretending
there is no one standing next to me.
POEM FOR THE FUTURE
Remember that history is always
a sad story, eventually. Remember
how the world gets drunk to forget
its children, tiny and strapped
into car seats in case of emergency.
How we try to forget history beating
in our chests, a rhythm that breaks
all our bones. Remember those fish
swimming upstream to spawn, how
most of them won’t ever make it.
How it feels like most of us won’t
make it, right now. Remember fear
tastes like saltwater and the hook.
Courage tastes like firewater and
the hook, remember. History just may
seem beautiful one day, but for now
remember how your father looked
at you every night while you slept,
one hand on your chest, one hand
on history to protect you. Remember
how he can’t ever protect anyone
from sad stories. One day, history will
careen across several lanes of traffic
and into a pond. History will take us
down with it, like it always does--
but remember history will survive.
And so will we. Won’t we?
and so far from home
we won’t be listening
to the far flung future
to those malevolent sounds
an old house makes
broken now like
weather after the funeral--
other children called
that ancient woman
the witch but we called her
bachan, grandmother
made of slick sinew
and wind—not the ghost
of wartime incarceration
not black magic
not mythology of dust
and barbed wire
no—there is a storm
inside my heart, sad
cyclone dislodging
grief where it hangs in
the body, where sorrow
emerges savage from
black skies like
a ragged cloud
of winged figures--
primitive angels
ask us where we’re from--
we’ll say there’s a house
on the other side
of the rainbow—we’ll say
there’s that field
of dying poppies
where we once slept--
we’ll say there’s no place
THE SKY IS FULL OF SKELETONS
Some day the sky will fall
apart, break into flocks of birds,
each one bearing a slow song
for the dead. Some day the world
will crack open to reveal the quiet
names of my ancestors tattooed
beneath its mantle. It’s raining bullets
somewhere in the world, everyone’s
drunk uncles standing in the backyard,
their pistols pointed up at the moon.
The stars dissolve into prayers,
the constellations into a song
about dynamite and whiskey
and other words we have for love.
In the afterlife, there is a secret grove
of stones, each one bearing a name
long since surrendered to night.
There is a family of skeletons
trying to remember how they know
one another. I'm the one missing
half its ribcage, the one pretending
there is no one standing next to me.
POEM FOR THE FUTURE
Remember that history is always
a sad story, eventually. Remember
how the world gets drunk to forget
its children, tiny and strapped
into car seats in case of emergency.
How we try to forget history beating
in our chests, a rhythm that breaks
all our bones. Remember those fish
swimming upstream to spawn, how
most of them won’t ever make it.
How it feels like most of us won’t
make it, right now. Remember fear
tastes like saltwater and the hook.
Courage tastes like firewater and
the hook, remember. History just may
seem beautiful one day, but for now
remember how your father looked
at you every night while you slept,
one hand on your chest, one hand
on history to protect you. Remember
how he can’t ever protect anyone
from sad stories. One day, history will
careen across several lanes of traffic
and into a pond. History will take us
down with it, like it always does--
but remember history will survive.
And so will we. Won’t we?